


What If Your Darkness Looked Like Mine?

by byjosten



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Dark, Edgar Allan Ravens (All For The Game), Escapism, Exy (All For The Game), Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Happy Foxes (All For The Game), Jean wants love, Jeremy Knox is a sunshine, Kevin Day doesn't know his feelings, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Slow Burn, Smut, Tattoos, USC Trojans (All For The Game), but doesn't know how to ask for it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:47:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22352821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byjosten/pseuds/byjosten
Summary: When Jeremy and Kevin escape to the same club to leave their mounted, stressful fame behind for one night every fortnight, they screw around, make nothing of it. They know their arrangement; they're happy in their arrangement. But when Jean Moreau starts showing up with his own need for the club and what it provides, Jeremy soon looks a little deeper than the boy who goes along with the Edgar Allen Ravens--and realises that there isn't just a player there but a boy who needs to get out. And after all, isn't that what he started going to the club for? To be more than just his team? More than his Exy number?
Relationships: Jeremy Knox/Jean Moreau, Kevin Day/Jeremy Knox, Kevin Day/Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	What If Your Darkness Looked Like Mine?

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! not sure when i'll be able to update this because we know my brain and drabbles!! anyhoo!! enjoy!! i love the grand dynamic ship that is Jerejean and WILL die on the sunshine/dark boy trope.
> 
> as always: come find me on tumblr @byjosten, i make great memes, hc posts, and cosplays

Jeremy Knox knew that appearances were everything. He knew that everytime he pulled on his jersey and walked onto the court; he knew that everytime he posted to his Instagram; he knew that everytime he was photographed speaking to a player from another team. He knew that no matter what he did, no matter what he said, wore, looked like, people were watching, waiting to judge or fawn over.

He was acutely aware of his status as he adjusted his red shirt, the flimsy cuffs proving to be somewhat bothersome as he wound his way in and out the crowd. He was aware that this was the one place he could disappear to and not be seen. He wouldn’t be Jeremy Knox, Captain of the Trojans here. He was just a boy with a desire to dance and drink his way into the dark hours of the night.

A game was scheduled tomorrow at four o clock. Jeremy shouldn’t have been in a club--he should have been sleeping but the lull and persuasion was too hard to resist. When was the last time he had shed his celebrity-status persona and just been the boy beneath all the Exy uniform? He looked across at the dark-haired, tattooed boy as they settled at a table. Jeremy alone was a chaotic risk. Kevin Day alone was a chaotic risk. Both of them together was definitely something to chance yet there they both were, finding solace in the pounding background of shitty music, cheap shots, and the thrill of a dark club where nobody remembered faces the next day.

Kevin was already several drinks in when he smiled lazily at Jeremy. Several years ago they had opposed each other on the court: Foxes versus Trojans. The media and crowds had gone nuts to see them together on the court. After the game, Kevin had found Jeremy shaking in the locker room, eyes vacant, hands trembling. His fame had climbed inside his throat, infecting him, to a point where he couldn’t handle it. Kevin Day’s interaction shouldn’t have made anything better but it did.

He looked at the star Exy player now, a small smile lingering on his lips. The tattoo of the Queen chess piece on his cheek was almost invisible under the club lights, but Jeremy’s focus fell down to Kevin’s neck, to the other tattoo he’d gotten there a few months ago. It was small, three small stars intertwined by different coloured threads: orange, black, and golden. Jeremy knew it was to represent the three players that often caused the Foxes the most shit--and the most victories. Neil Josten, Kevin Day, and Andrew Minyard, all taking a prime, visible spot on Kevin’s skin.

Jeremy didn’t know it but there was a golden-and-red star on Kevin’s right shoulder blade, tattooed the day after the locker room episode, where Kevin had admitted he had panic attacks for much different reasons. Jeremy had listened, and so had Kevin, in turn. They were all tattooed on Kevin’s body, an intimate choice, for the boys who meant everything to him. The Exy players he scored along and had always believed in fiercely, and Jeremy, the Captain that Kevin could forget about his stardom life with.

Kevin met his gaze and smiled. Jeremy lifted a brow, toasted his shot, then downed it. “Another round?”

“How about a dance?”

Jeremy laughed, free and loose. “To this shit? Really, Kevin, I might be getting more drunk by the seconds but I still have musical standards.”

Kevin snorted. “I’ve heard what you play to hype up before a game. That’s not having standards, Jeremy, that’s called bad taste.” He knocked back the rest of his own drink. “Fine, but have fun watching me dance with someone else.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes as Kevin swayed into the crowd, leaving the safety of the booths behind. What they shared was a weird thing, something formed from dark corners of clubs, from needing an escape, from needing company that saw through the facade and fame. It was hard touches and soft tones. It was unlabelled but always  _ there _ . Jeremy knew Kevin loved both Neil and Andrew fiercely, would do anything for them, would cross the world for them, but he never labelled anything. He never thought past the direct moments unless it concerned Exy. He did what he felt like there and then and never put a name to it.

It was only when Jeremy indeed watched Kevin dance with someone else that he wondered what it would be like to have someone slip their fingers through his and call him theirs. To smile at cameras and say, “He’s my boyfriend,” and not worry about what anyone thought. He would not find that with Kevin Day, nor did he entirely want to. They would be a power couple but any power they currently had lay only in the force of the orgasms they worked out of each other when stress levels became unbearable. They were a coinciding duo, two boys who knew their way around each other’s bodies, who knew how to blow off steam with each other. That’s all they were--and would be nothing more. Jeremy, as he ordered another drink, thought he was quite content with that being their limit. He wasn’t about to run off into the sunset with Kevin, nor did he lie awake picturing a future with the infamous Exy player.

No, they were purely physical in hidden corners or late hours in Jeremy’s bed, or completely platonic on the court. But later, when Jeremy yanked Kevin free from wandering hands surrounding him, he tugged him away to the bathroom, and pushed up his shirt. Kevin’s physique always stole his breath away, threatened to get Jeremy lost in his finely-muscled body, so he pushed Kevin around, pressed his chest to the bathroom stall wall, and finally saw the tattoo.

Recently they had been in his bedroom for things like that, Kevin on his back, claiming laziness after practice, no mind for Jeremy’s exhaustion. That was the first time he saw the tattoo, in the colours Jeremy was known for, and he couldn’t help kissing it, biting the skin around the tattoo so the marks represented the boy the tattoo was inspired by. Kevin shifted against him, fingers reaching behind to tangle in Jeremy’s blonde hair, to pull his mouth to his.

“I like this,” Jeremy murmured against his shoulder, fingertips dancing over the star, pressing harder down the length of Kevin’s shoulder blade to feel the shiver. “You should have told me.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Kevin answered, smiling. “I’ve been waiting for you to see, to comment, to look.”

“Maybe change up your position on your back, pillow prince, and you wouldn’t have had to wait so long for me to see it.”

Kevin jabbed an elbow back but Jeremy had already slid a hand forward, fingers splayed over Kevin’s hipbone, reaching lower to hear the dark-haired boy groan. When he made Kevin come, he mouthed over the tattoo again, wondering if it had been another drunken idea. One player did not get a tattoo for another player, his hookup-rival-friend. The other two boys meant more, Jeremy knew that, and understood their meaning. But a star for Jeremy too? He pushed those thoughts aside as Kevin turned, forcing Jeremy’s back against the other wall, before he dropped to his knees.

“You leave first,” he said later, fastening the top few buttons of his shirt. Kevin fixed himself in the mirror, splashing water into his mouth, ruffling his hair back into place. Jeremy’s gaze averted. “I’ll follow you out. Are you staying?”

Kevin gave him a knowing look. “Where’s there’s alcohol there’s Kevin Day. And you have a game tomorrow. Shouldn’t you be heading home?”

“I  _ should _ ,” Jeremy said. “But weren’t you the one who taught me how to play my best on minimal sleep?”

“Actually, you broke into our court and watched me train Neil when he wasn’t sleeping. You got free advice.”

“Well, there you go. You take what you can in this world, Day.”

Kevin gave him a softer smile.

Jeremy cleared his throat, figuring that now was a better time than any, to say the thing he had been swallowing for a long time. “I know I don’t mean the same as them--” he gestured to the combined stars on Kevin’s neck. “But… It would be nice to get some clarification. Are you just--you know, fucking them too? Is it more with you three? I know it’s not more with us but are we exclusively fucking? If I dated someone would you be okay to stop fu--”

“Don’t say fucking again,” Kevin grinned. It seemed at-odds with the nervous storm inside of Jeremy. “Are you interested in someone?”

“No, but it doesn’t feel like I can be either.”

“Do you want to stop--” He gestured between them, eyes dropping downwards. “--You’re flying low--do you want to stop what we’re doing? Just be Jeremy Knox and Kevin Day on the court? Nothing off it but friends? And only friends. Not friends who suck each other’s--”

“I get it,” Jeremy said, cringing. He fixed his zipper. “No, I--I like this. I just wanted some boundaries. To know where I can and can’t go, you know, around us.”

Kevin nodded, finally getting the seriousness of Jeremy’s need for clarification. “With Andrew and Neil, it’s more than what we’re doing. It’s not  _ official _ , although God knows everyone knows they are, but I can’t bring myself to publicly talk about being with them. Too many eyes, too many fans wanting to pick apart our past trauma and claim we’re only compatible because of that.”

“People wouldn’t--”

“They already have.” Kevin waved it off. “So I don’t want to add fuel to all of that. But you, Jeremy, you can do or date whoever you want, and if any point this needs to end between us just say the word and we’ll stop.”

They met each other’s gazes for a moment. Jeremy nodded. “Okay.  _ Okay _ . Thank you.”

“And on that note,” Kevin said, clearing his throat. “I’m going to get drunk again. Good luck with your game tomorrow.” Jeremy barely said goodbye before Kevin was gone. He waited five minutes before he left as well, only to bump into someone, a tall boy in black clothing, barely noticeable in the dark club.

“Next time you fuck Kevin Day in the bathroom you might want to assess noise levels,” he said, voice deep and rich, a hint of a French accent forced to dampen by years of living in America. Jeremy knew him instantly, but the question of what the fuck Jean Moreau was doing here was more important.

He did what he could in the moment, and said, “Next time don’t listen long enough to work out it was Kevin Day.”

Jean shrugged. “It’s called a need to piss, Knox. Some men take a while. We don’t just shoot sunshine out of our dicks and be off with it.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes and went to walk on. But Jean stopped him, veering in front of him quickly to block his path. “Have a drink with me.” There was a suggestive tone to his question but it wasn’t sexual. It was more desperate, a need for company, rather than a need to see where drinks could lead. Jeremy looked closer, and saw how Jean angled the left side of his face away. His gaze flickered over the strands of black hair that fell into Jean’s eyes.

“Straight whiskey helps with pain,” he said, unsure of why he did, fearing that Jean would walk away, or strike against him. Jean Moreau, one of the Raven’s players, was not known for niceties. But neither were any of the formidable team. And if Jean was already talking to him then it meant he had some sort of defense down.

Jean slid into the booth Jeremy had vacated earlier. At once he looked less dangerous than he ever had at Riko Moriyama’s side, and yet more threatening. He blended in, became one with the shadows, and that made Jeremy swallow. Yet Jean met his eyes with all the coolness of someone who felt like they had control over a situation. “I’ll have a double then. Straight.”

Jeremy, surrounded by incredible teammates and friends, didn’t know what to say to that. He only turned and went back to the bar, his fingers tapping a rhythm out nervously. What did Jean Moreau want with him? He was so busy thinking on that that he didn’t look around for Kevin, didn’t spare the other boy a single thought, as he grasped two whiskey tumblers and took them back to the table. He slid one over to Jean, and watched as he knocked it back without a second’s hesitation. Much to the other player’s credit, he barely winced. Jeremy didn’t want to think about how much a boy had to drink to not cringe at straight double whiskey.

“What would you know about pain, Captain Sunshine?”

“Don’t call me that,” Jeremy said quietly, because this was his place, his respite from the crowds and the fans and sports. Whilst Exy was his life, it wasn’t the only thing that made him. He wanted to separate boy from team; man from captain.

“Why? Not fond of the rumours that the sun literally pours out of your ass? Would Kevin Day be able to attest, or does only know how to be fu--”

“Don’t talk about him,” Jeremy almost snapped. He clenched his fingers around his tumbler. “What do you want?”

Jean shrugged, eyes looking past him now. “Same as you. To forget. To blend into a crowd and not be who I am out there.”

Jeremy couldn’t help snorting. “You’re a Raven. You thrive on the notoriety of the fame and status.”

Jean’s eyes cut to his, jaw working tightly. “Just because I wear their colours doesn’t mean I’m a Raven. Doesn’t mean I’m like them.”

He squinted. “Are you high?”

Jean closed his eyes briefly. “You know what, forget it. Enjoy your night. Thanks for the drink.”

Jeremy was too stunned at the exchange to realise he was sliding out of the booth. It was only when he watched Jean slip away into the press of bodies that he realised he wished he had snagged the sleeve of his jacket to ask him to stay. Jeremy couldn’t remember speaking two words to Jean without the exchange being heavily layered with insults. But this time they hadn’t been at him. They had been mocking, sure, but not outright insulting. He stared out into the crowd, watching for Jean, until he realised he wasn’t coming back.

This time it wasn’t a Raven who had insulted someone. Jeremy had a feeling he had insulted a Raven and he wasn’t entirely sure if there would be a consequence.

  
  



End file.
